The Causes of English Writing Anxiety among Pakistani ESL Students: Perceptions of Teachers and Students

Abstract

English language writing skills play a significant role in academic and professional lives in the ESL context. Anxiety can have debilitating effects on learning English language listening, reading, speaking and writing skills. The objective of the current study was to explore the causes of writing anxiety in Pakistani undergraduate ESL students. The data for this study were collected from Pakistani ESL students and English language teachers in Karachi with asample that had both public and private-sector representation. Group interviews were held to collect the data. Interview protocols were designed for the interviews of the students and the teachers and checked for self-validity and expert validity. Three group interviews were carried out with the undergraduate ESL students and two with the ESL English language teachers. All of the interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Respondent validation technique was used for the transcription and similarly, inter-coder reliability was carried out for respondents’ Urdu translation into English. The findings revealed multiple causes of Pakistani ESL students’ English language writing anxiety.